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Notable American Unitarians 1936-1961
By Herbert F. Vetter
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Square Library, 2007

Feature Review
Charles W. Eddis, Minister Emeritus, Unitarian Church of Montreal, Montreal, QC

"Notable American Unitarians 1936-1961" arrived last night at dinner time. Once I took it from its package, I could not keep myself from browsing through it until I went to bed. You have assembled fascinating short biographies of so many key people, written, so far as I can ascertain, by highly qualified people. So many of these people I have known, but this collection tells me much of interest I did not know about them.

This book will add much to my own exploration and writing about the last two generations. It should become a standard reference book for those with historical interests.

I can only add that it raises again the question of name and identity. I took a liking to the Universalists when I first got to know them as an active member of American Unitarian Youth. The Charles Street Meeting House with the ministry of Kenneth L.Patton, created by the Massachusetts Universalist Convention, was my spiritual home when I lived in Boston. I was a committed supporters of "merger", first of the Unitarian and Universalist Youth, and then of the adult bodies, an association (American Unitarian Association) and a church (The Universalist Church of America). I have been a Unitarian Universalist minister since 1961. But I remain a Unitarian. It is a trifle sad that the book title ends in 1961. I leave it to others to smooth out the double-barrelled name the UUA Board wished upon us. I did not vote for it or support it.

I am pleased to note that notable American Unitarians includes a modest number of Canadians, including Brock Chisholm, Lotta Hitschmanova, Dorothy Livesay, Arthur Lismer, and Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Margaret Laurence, a noteworthy Canadian author is claimed as a Unitarian. She was, but left the Unitarians because they did not show enough respect for their ancestors. Canadians can also lay some claim to John Nicholls Booth, who lived in Canada from early childhood until his career as a magician took him traveling in the United States as well as Canada. In the pages of this book as it is entitled, Canadians will not mind being included. It does not create the problems raised by the double-barrelled name. I must also say it is easy to find any one in the book, since those recognized all appear alphabetically. The photograph that accompanies each personal account enriches the whole.

This is a book that stirs many memories, which I will treasure.

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From Nobel Prize winners to folk singers Herbert Vetter’s Notable American Unitarians 1936-61 catalogs 20th century contributions of the Unitarian side of the Unitarian Universalist family. Americans owe much to the members of the small and dedicated church who were instrumental in the creation of the transistor, the U.S. answer to the Sputnik challenge. Unitarians were founders and creators of the discipline of intellectual history and contributors to history and the social sciences.  Social activists and modern philosophers were part of this brilliant cavalcade. Here you will find Whitney Young, Civil Rights leader, and Roger Baldwin founder of the Civil Liberties Union. William Carlos Williams of Spanish heritage, May Sarton, and e.e. cummings are numbered among the poets. The musicians include Bartok , Malvina Reynolds, and Pete Seeger. He documents the contribution of Unitarians to public television through the Lowell Institute.  Herbert Vetter founder of the Cambridge Forum knows his subject well.  He is Minister at Large emeritus of the First Parish Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist, founded 1636.
Wesley V. Hromatko, D.Min